First before the spookiness commences, turn your oven on to 180°C or gas mark 4

Begin by creaming your butter and caster sugar in a mixing bowl. Do this with a wooden spoon. Stir until soft and fluffy

Now beat your eggs

Add your beaten egg into your buttered mixture. Make sure to add one third of the egg at a time to make sure it’s mixed nicely

Don’t worry if it looks lumpy at this stage. Once we add the flour it will get smoother

Don’t be put off by the lumpiness at this stage

Now we fold in the flour. To do this you need a metal spoon and you simply mix in a figure 8, incororated air into the mixture this way. See the gif below! Keep going and scooping mixture off the side as you go until it’s nice and smooth

Spoon your mixture into each case. Be sure to not overfill them as they’ll spill everywhere in the oven as they expand!

Next pop into the oven for around 15 minutes. Check before this incase they’re done early as ovens can be temperamental! They should be golden on top and if you stick a sharp knife inside one of the cakes, the knife should come out clean. If you find mixture comes out on the knife they’re not ready yet

In the meantime make the topping. Pick either icing or white chocolate. For the icing simply put 2 tablespoons of tap water into a mixing bowl. Slowly add icing sugar until it becomes a slightly thick consistancy (it doesn’t drip off your spoon) but is still spreadable

Wait for your cupcakes to cool then spread your icing evenly over each cupcake

Alternatively if you have more of a chocolate tooth melt white chocolate either in a double boiler pot on the hob or in the microwave. Pop it into a microwavable pot, then zap it for 30 seconds-1 minute at a time. Pause to stir it after each batch of time to make sure it doesn’t burn

Now using a spoon top each cupcake with the melted chocolate evenly

Now for the pièce de résistance: the eyeball…

Simple but so effective. Carefully pick up a pitted lychee. I used the tinned kind, which were very delicate. I had to pick them up carefully so thy didn’t split. The tiny splits actually helped to look more realistic as the blueberry colour drained down the crevaces. Now grab a blueberry and pop it inside the lychee where the stone used to be

Now carefully but firmly pop your eyeball on top of each iced cupcake. It’s best to do this when the icing is not too firm, so the quicker after icing the better

And there you have it: eyeball cupcakes. The first of our halloween recipes this year. Keep your eyeball cupcakes peeled for our next ones!

The Ultimate Chocolate Crispy Cake Recipe

So Easter may have come and gone but that’s no excuse not to carry on making and eating chocolate crispy cakes! We’ve created the ultimate moist, chocolatey recipe which takes hardly any time at all to make and even less time to gobble down.

No cooking is required so this is super easy for everyone in the family to make!

Chocolate Crispy Cake Recipe

Ingredients:

1/4-1/3 pack of Coco Pops (feel free to substitute this for rice crispies, cornflakes or something slightly healthier if you fancy. We can’t guarantee the amazingness without Coco Pops though!)

75 grams Butter

3 Tablespoons Golden Syrup

135 grams Bourneville Chocolate (sub for Plain Chocolate for a darker taste or milk for an extra sweet taste)

What else you’ll need:

Nice patterned paper cake cases

Method:

1.Melt the chocolate in a Bain-Marie or microwave, making sure to stir often so it doesn’t burn

2. Meanwhile melt the butter in a different pan

3. Take the butter off the heat then add the Coco Pops, Golden Syrup and melted chocolate

4. Mix it all up thoroughly so each pop has a good coating of the mixture. If it’s really liquid-y you can always add a few more cocopops. You want a fairly good coating on each though so they’re nice and moist!

5. Lay out your cake cases on a tray, plate or whatever you can store in the fridge best

6. Using two spoons scoop up a couple of spoonfuls of mixture and place carefully into each cake case. Fill each case as much or as little as you want, just make sure they don’t overflow

7. Now place the cakes in the fridge for a couple of hours

8. And BAM! You have the most delicious desserts on the planet!

Feel free to decorate them with mini eggs, marshmallows or whatever. We think they’re sweet enough on their own though!

Kameleon Kids Learning: A Brief History of Cotton

Our babygrows, bibs, scratch mits and hats are all 100% cotton. Our rompers are additionally organic. Here we look at the rich and long history of cotton: the good, the bad and the ugly.

This is the first in a series of blogs exploring the materials we use and the dyeing process.

“A wool exceeding in beauty and goodness that of sheep.” Herodotus, 5th century BC

Photo Author Kimberly Vardeman

A Brief History of Cotton

Pre 3000BC

The history of the domestication of cotton is hazy and there is little known of its exact beginnings. We do know that it dates back to at least 4500BC. Some of the oldest specimens of cotton bolls are from approximately 3600BC. They are interestingly much the same as the cotton we grow today.
Cotton is believed to have originated in Peru, with genetic evidence pointing to this.
Cotton was spun as early as 3000BC in Asia whilst being grown and processed in Mexico and Arizona.

The Greeks and Romans

When Alexander The Great invaded India he first saw cotton. The common woollen uniforms and clothes of the greeks were soon replaced with that of cotton. They were much more comfortable for his troops than the previous woollen ones. Cotton is breathable, while also keeping you cool on hot days and warm on cold days. This made it ideal for soldiers. Camel Caravans then began exporting cotton to other parts of the world from India.

The Muslim conquer of Spain in the 8th Century created new shipping ports. This opened up the European Cotton trade.

In 1492 Columbus discovered America. He also saw cotton plants growing and natives wearing cotton clothes. He was in awe of these clothes and more cotton was hence planted in the USA.

The Middle Ages

Amusingly during the middle ages, rumours spread of a plant animal hybrid producing cotton,. The ‘lamb plant’ was termed, despite the previous knowledge of the origins of cotton.

Originally from The Vegetable Lamb of Tartary… by Lee, H. 1887

The British Empire

The East India Company was a British company set up to trade commodities from the East Indies to Britain. Cotton was one of their predominant products. By 1664 they were importing a quarter of a million pieces of cotton into Britain. Cotton is one of the most hygienic fabrics as it can be cleansed with ease and little effort. Thus, cotton took off with the British as they became more and more aware of personal hygiene and cleanliness. Brits were also now keeping an eye on fashion. Cotton can also be dyed many different colours making it malleable with fashion changes. This cemented cotton as the fabric a la mode.

East India Company Docks

The Industrial Revolution

The Industrial Revolution meant the cotton industry expanded quickly. Over 40% of British exports were Cotton between 1784–1786. 200,000 children worked in Manchester’s new cotton mills creating garments and cotton products. Conditions were unfortunately poor. The British used their power in India to force cotton manufacture to Britain. They created high taxes for garment workshops and harsh restrictions on imports to Britain. India ended up simply cultivating the crop and acting as a source of the raw cotton.

Shift to African Cotton and Slavery

Cotton imports had shifted previously from India to the USA. Southern USA then used this against Britain. They tried to withhold their cotton to force Britain’s involvement in the Civil War, to no avail. Britain began importing Egyptian Cotton. In 1882 the USA cotton industry fell as a plague of weevils infested their crops. This created problems for over one hundred years. So Britain began looking elsewhere for not only reliable but cheaper cotton.

from the New Pictorial Atlas of the World” by George Wharton James and Alan H. Burgoyne, 1921 John Thomas

Britain looked to their African Colonies. To those who had a cheap supply of cotton, such as West Africa and Mozambique. Tariffs for cotton production here were high, so cotton still was manufactured elsewhere. The actual cotton found here was cheap and the labour, such as picking, was even cheaper. Africans became exploited and shipped to other countries. Predominantly the USA to pick cotton there as slaves.

Cotton as a modern commodity

Cotton production was booming in Britain in 1912. Then The First World War began. This meant that cotton products could no longer be exported from Britain. So other countries set up their own manufacturing plants. Demand for British Cotton products continued to decline. Japan decided to be innovative and in 1933 began 24-hour production of cotton. This made it cheaper and more plentiful. India at began boycotting British cotton, exacerbating the slump even more.

World War Two then created a new need for cotton: parachutes, uniforms and such were vital. Employment rose in the industry including for those from the Indian sub-continent. However as the war ended, demand for British cotton products began to decline. Britain began importing cotton products as a cheaper means.d. New workers were employed including those from the Indian sub-continent. However demand for British cotton products after the war again began to decline so Britain began importing cotton products as a cheaper means.

Now

Cotton products are now produced mainly in China, the USA and India. The USA is the largest exporter of cotton. Since the 1980s the demand for cotton has almost doubled. There is an even greater demand for synthetic materials such as acrylic and polyesters. Even more than the demand for organic cottons. This is due to its cheap creation from poor materials and our ‘fast fashion’ culture. You only wear an outfit a few times, so it doesn’t need to be good quality.

Lancashire in England, over the last few years, has been reviving the British textile industry. This includes manufacturing cotton clothes. All our babygrows, hats, bibs etc. which are not organic are made in Britain. We believe in supporting local businesses and not supporting cheap, ‘slave’ labour. We also believe our clothes should not be ‘fast’. They should last until after your child has outgrown them. and then they can even then be passed down to your other kids.

Sources:
The National Cotton Council of America
New Internationalist Magazine: Issue 399
Huckell, Lisa W. (1993). “Plant Remains from the Pinaleño Cotton Cache, Arizona”. Kiva, the Journal of Southwest Anthropology and History 59 (2): 148–149.
Volti, Rudi (1999). “cotton”. The Facts On File Encyclopedia of Science, Technology, and Society.
Yafa, Stephen (2005). Cotton: The Biography of a Revolutionary Fiber. Penguin Group.
Wikipedia.org
Schoen, Brian (2009). The Fragile Fabric of Union: Cotton, Federal Politics, and the Global Origins of the Civil War. Johns Hopkins University Press. pp. 26–31.
“Cotton – a history”. New Internationalist 399. 1 April 2007.
“The Civil War Era (1850–1877)”. Gale Encyclopedia of U.S. History: Government and Politics. 2008.
“We Don’t Cotton to Boll Weevil ‘Round Here Anymore”. Agricultural Research Service. United States Department of Agriculture. Retrieved 14 June 2011.
“Boom to Bust – The Decline of the Cotton Industry”. Nation on Film. BBC. Retrieved 28 June 2011.

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We lovingly hand dye all of our pieces for you and your little ones! Pre-washed so they are colour safe. We use natural super soft fibres for you babies delicate skin. Made and Hand Dyed in Britain